56

Resurrection Remix for OP3 (review)
Apr 19, 2017

KitKatApr 19, 2017

So, after several years of always running custom ROMs (CM based) on all of my devices, I got the OP3 and after the recent unpleasantness at Cyanogenmod and before the transition to Lineage, I decided to flash OOS back to it and give it a try. I loved almost everything about it. The one thing I missed was the granular control over app permissions that CM’s Privacy Guard offered. So, recently (with Easter and all) I decided to give Resurrection Remix a go on my phone. Here is my review.

First, if you decide to try this, make sure you have read and researched what all is involved. If you come back on here complaining that RR ruined your phone, you lost your data, your cat exploded, your car ran out of gas, or anything else, I will laugh at you. Seriously, make sure you are comfortable backing up and restoring data, flashing and reflashing ROMs, researching, finding, and applying solutions, and taking responsibility for your own decisions and mistakes. Flashing a ROM is a simple, straightforward process almost all of the time, but things can go wrong. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I downloaded the most recent build of Resurrection Remix for the OP3 from their website. I am not linking it here, because you can find it easily with a search. The whole process of flashing this via TWRP was a breeze. It comes with Magisk preinstalled, so I did not need SuperSU for root. I did have to wipe everything except local storage in TWRP before and after flashing RR and GAPPS pico (I kill almost all Google things on my phone anyway, so I just needed the bare minimum to get Play Services working). After the wipe, flash, flash, wipe process, I rebooted and everything came up just as expected.

RR has the best of everything I loved about OOS, CM, SlimRom, and others. It is really slick and well put together.

The Interface:

The interface was all bright, light, and white. There was no baked-in theme manager, so I installed Substratum from the play store along with a few dark themes. RR (unlike some ROMs) has full Substratum support, so the end result is dark, deep, and (to me) beautiful.

RR rums fast and smooth on the OP3. No lag, no delay, no glitch. I did notice that some elements of some of the Substratum themes caused Fcs on some apps and services, but Substratum noticed those, too and killed those theme elements, leaving those things unthemed. I simply went back and found elements from other Substratum themes to go over those. No problems since.

The only thing I could not theme as dark is the “Other Buttons” option (used to customize the Alert Slider <more about that later>), but since that option is set and forget, I’ll never need to see it again. Let it stay white, I don’t care.

There are a myriad of customizations in RR. It would be easy to get lost in them. I took my time going through them, one page and one line at a time, until I had my phone the way I wanted it.

RR offers both the Trebuchet launcher (from CM/LOS) and Pixel Launcher. I chose Pixel because since I was locking down all of Google’s ability to communicate outside of my phone, it gave me the features I wanted without the cost of my privacy. You can choose either. The Pixel launcher has the nifty touch features for apps that support it. That list is growing.

As mentioned above, there is a setting for “Other Buttons” to allow you to change the setting for the Alert Slider. I never understood why it was set the way it was. Mine is now set as: Top = All Notifications, Middle = Priority, Bottom = Silence. There are other settings and you have full control. That is as it should be.

The Recorder also includes a Screen Recorder with the ability to capture sound from the mic. No more crappy, bloatware, ad-supported, third party screen recorder apps. It’s baked-in.

The System:

I initially installed this on Good Friday and played with it for a while, breaking it on purpose to learn my way around it (that is something I do on all new OSs — mobile or otherwise). After a few times of that process, I was set up and ready to begin testing the features, battery, etc.Then a new update was released for Easter. I couldn’t get over the whole Resurrection thing for Easter, so I updated. The update took me from 7.1.1 to 7.1.2 with the security patch from April 5. So, I am now running the most up-to-date, most secure version of Android available. Not too shabby.

There is a built-in update feature, but all it seems to do is search for the update and alert you that it is available. When you click to update, it takes you to the page to download the new build and then you have to boot into TWRP to install it manually. It could be easier, but it does give you more control. While I was in TWRP, I went ahead and deleted the older download, just to keep things clean.

All of the hardware buttons work without any lag. Ditto the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint may not be quite as fast as stock, but that may be because I have the home key set to do several different things. I have it set to home for a single touch, last app for long press, and screen off for double touch. At any rate the difference is so minor that I am not even sure there is a difference.

Privacy/Security:

Besides the built-in encryption (baked-in to Android) and the most recent security patch, RR offers CM’s Privacy Guard. PG allows you granular control over app permissions. Before, you only had control over the things Android gave you control over. With PG, you can install an app and lock it down as tight as you want. For instance, I don’t trust Google at all. So, I went into PG and locked Play Services from access to my location, mic, camera, calendar (which I don’t use anyway), phone, call logs, sms, mms, and several other things. Google can kiss off. They don’t need to see that and now they can’t. I do the same thing with most other apps. The control is in my hands. My privacy is mine and I can take action to protect it.

The Battery:

After all of the flashes and reflashes and the update, I let the the battery charge all the way and then let it run down to 2% before charging. I got over ten hours total use and over seven hours SoT. That is great considering that I spent the day setting everything up, theming everything, and playing on it to push it hard for testing it.

That charge was fast, thanks to DASH Charging support in RR. It took about an hour and 15 minutes for the phone to charge completely.

Interestingly, the charge slows down as the battery gets full.

The next battery cycle (today) has been even better. The uptick in the graph below is from a period of about four minutes when I had it plugged up to my PC to move all the screenshots over to post to this review. Those four minutes do not really affect the picture of this battery. It is a beast on RR.

The battery and the phone both stay cool to the touch and perform well within my expectations.

The Camera:

The CM camera is very good, but I like the OOS camera a lot. So, I popped over to XDA and downloaded the most recent APK and installed it. Now I have both cameras and they both work great. The OOS camera behaves exactly the same as it does on OOS except there is no option to save as RAW. Since I didn’t use that very often, it is not an issue to me. If you do, it may be something to consider.

Pics on the OOS camera are good. As you can see, I took some up close, with motion, and in different light settings. They are all plenty good enough for me. I have not tested the video camera, but I may update this review once I do.

[Edited to add pics.]

Summary:

I bought the OP3 for the hardware; it just happened to come with good software. I like OOS a lot. I think it is the very best stock ROM I have ever seen. But — and this is important — there are some security features it does not inlcude that I can have in RR. Also, let’s face it, OP has a reputation for dumping support for previous phones when a new model comes out. Whether the company has learned its lesson about that remains to be seen. For me, I could care less. I bought this phone so that I could keep it updated myself. RR is fast, smooth, beautiful, powerful, and up-to-date. I have found my ROM. At least for now.

If you want to have more control over your phone and have the ability to handle the responsibility, try RR. You may like it as much as I do. I am sure I left some things out of this review. Feel free to ask questions.

Ice Cream SandwichApr 19, 2017

So, after several years of always running custom ROMs (CM based) on all of my devices, I got the OP3 and after the recent unpleasantness at Cyanogenmod and before the transition to Lineage, I decided to flash OOS back to it and give it a try. I loved almost everything about it. The one thing I missed was the granular control over app permissions that CM’s Privacy Guard offered. So, recently (with Easter and all) I decided to give Resurrection Remix a go on my phone. Here is my review.

First, if you decide to try this, make sure you have read and researched what all is involved. If you come back on here complaining that RR ruined your phone, you lost your data, your cat exploded, your car ran out of gas, or anything else, I will laugh at you. Seriously, make sure you are comfortable backing up and restoring data, flashing and reflashing ROMs, researching, finding, and applying solutions, and taking responsibility for your own decisions and mistakes. Flashing a ROM is a simple, straightforward process almost all of the time, but things can go wrong. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I downloaded the most recent build of Resurrection Remix for the OP3 from their website. I am not linking it here, because you can find it easily with a search. The whole process of flashing this via TWRP was a breeze. It comes with Magisk preinstalled, so I did not need SuperSU for root. I did have to wipe everything except local storage in TWRP before and after flashing RR and GAPPS pico (I kill almost all Google things on my phone anyway, so I just needed the bare minimum to get Play Services working). After the wipe, flash, flash, wipe process, I rebooted and everything came up just as expected.

RR has the best of everything I loved about OOS, CM, SlimRom, and others. It is really slick and well put together.

The Interface:

The interface was all bright, light, and white. There was no baked-in theme manager, so I installed Substratum from the play store along with a few dark themes. RR (unlike some ROMs) has full Substratum support, so the end result is dark, deep, and (to me) beautiful.

RR rums fast and smooth on the OP3. No lag, no delay, no glitch. I did notice that some elements of some of the Substratum themes caused Fcs on some apps and services, but Substratum noticed those, too and killed those theme elements, leaving those things unthemed. I simply went back and found elements from other Substratum themes to go over those. No problems since.

The only thing I could not theme as dark is the “Other Buttons” option (used to customize the Alert Slider <more about that later>), but since that option is set and forget, I’ll never need to see it again. Let it stay white, I don’t care.

RR offers both the Trebuchet launcher (from CM/LOS) and Pixel Launcher. I chose Pixel because since I was locking down all of Google’s ability to communicate outside of my phone, it gave me the features I wanted without the cost of my privacy. You can choose either. The Pixel launcher has the nifty touch features for apps that support it. That list is growing.

As mentioned above, there is a setting for “Other Buttons” to allow you to change the setting for the Alert Slider. I never understood why it was set the way it was. Mine is now set as: Top = All Notifications, Middle = Priority, Bottom = Silence. There are other settings and you have full control. That is as it should be.

The Recorder also includes a Screen Recorder with the ability to capture sound from the mic. No more crappy, bloatware, ad-supported, third party screen recorder apps. It’s baked-in.

The System:

I initially installed this on Good Friday and played with it for a while, breaking it on purpose to learn my way around it (that is something I do on all new OSs — mobile or otherwise). After a few times of that process, I was set up and ready to begin testing the features, battery, etc.Then a new update was released for Easter. I couldn’t get over the whole Resurrection thing for Easter, so I updated. The update took me from 7.1.1 to 7.1.2 with the security patch from April 5. So, I am now running the most up-to-date, most secure version of Android available. Not too shabby.

There is a built-in update feature, but all it seems to do is search for the update and alert you that it is available. When you click to update, it takes you to the page to download the new build and then you have to boot into TWRP to install it manually. It could be easier, but it does give you more control. While I was in TWRP, I went ahead and deleted the older download, just to keep things clean.

All of the hardware buttons work without any lag. Ditto the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint may not be quite as fast as stock, but that may be because I have the home key set to do several different things. I have it set to home for a single touch, last app for long press, and screen off for double touch. At any rate the difference is so minor that I am not even sure there is a difference.

Privacy/Security:

Besides the built-in encryption (baked-in to Android) and the most recent security patch, RR offers CM’s Privacy Guard. PG allows you granular control over app permissions. Before, you only had control over the things Android gave you control over. With PG, you can install an app and lock it down as tight as you want. For instance, I don’t trust Google at all. So, I went into PG and locked Play Services from access to my location, mic, camera, calendar (which I don’t use anyway), phone, call logs, sms, mms, and several other things. Google can kiss off. They don’t need to see that and now they can’t. I do the same thing with most other apps. The control is in my hands. My privacy is mine and I can take action to protect it.

After all of the flashes and reflashes and the update, I let the the battery charge all the way and then let it run down to 2% before charging. I got over ten hours total use and over seven hours SoT. That is great considering that I spent the day setting everything up, theming everything, and playing on it to push it hard for testing it.

The next battery cycle (today) has been even better. The uptick in the graph below is from a period of about four minutes when I had it plugged up to my PC to move all the screenshots over to post to this review. Those four minutes do not really affect the picture of this battery. It is a beast on RR.

The battery and the phone both stay cool to the touch and perform well within my expectations.

The Camera:

The CM camera is very good, but I like the OOS camera a lot. So, I popped over to XDA and downloaded the most recent APK and installed it. Now I have both cameras and they both work great. The OOS camera behaves exactly the same as it does on OOS except there is no option to save as RAW. Since I didn’t use that very often, it is not an issue to me. If you do, it may be something to consider.

Pics on the OOS camera are good. As you can see, I took some up close, with motion, and in different light settings. They are all plenty good enough for me. I have not tested the video camera, but I may update this review once I do.

[I will edit this to show the pics after I resize them. They are too large to upload right now.]

Summary:

I bought the OP3 for the hardware; it just happened to come with good software. I like OOS a lot. I think it is the very best stock ROM I have ever seen. But — and this is important — there are some security features it does not inlcude that I can have in RR. Also, let’s face it, OP has a reputation for dumping support for previous phones when a new model comes out. Whether the company has learned its lesson about that remains to be seen. For me, I could care less. I bought this phone so that I could keep it updated myself. RR is fast, smooth, beautiful, powerful, and up-to-date. I have found my ROM. At least for now.

If you want to have more control over your phone and have the ability to handle the responsibility, try RR. You may like it as much as I do. I am sure I left some things out of this review. Feel free to ask questions.

Click to expand...

So finally you did test it!!! Comprehensive review RR for Flasholics!!

Jelly BeanApr 19, 2017

Kudos to you for taking out the time to write this, while you're still recovering.
I might not try this for now, i like oos for the stock feel, and have settled the itch to flash custom roms on my razr. But it looks really compelling, with all those app permissions.
I just hope you don't get those stupid questions here.. that'd be awful..
Great job!

Ice Cream SandwichApr 20, 2017

Kudos to you for taking out the time to write this, while you're still recovering.
I might not try this for now, i like oos for the stock feel, and have settled the itch to flash custom roms on my razr. But it looks really compelling, with all those app permissions.
I just hope you don't get those stupid questions here.. that'd be awful..
Great job!